- From: Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:55:05 -0600
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>Please learn about transformable content. That is where web >accessibility is going. What do you think true assistive technologies have been doing? The transformation is happening at the client controlled by the user. There are also models where the transformation happens at the server (or anywhere in-between), but then you still need to capture the user preferences and configuration, and more importantly worry about security and privacy. IBM has been involved with assistive technologies and specifically screen readers for decades. Do you know where the term screen reader came from? - the first one I know of is the Screen Reader for DOS from IBM in the 1980's. IBM Research also had a server side transformation project that had been running for years, known as Web Access Gateway (WAG). WAG basically did the job of the assistive technology, for example by magnifying the content, before delivering it to the browser. That was demonstrated at CSUN a few years back. The latest IBM research project is now called Web Adaptation Technology (WAT). Read more at http://www.research.ibm.com/access/ Everyone please understand, this is not an argument about whether people with cognitive disabilities, or any other disability, need to reduce the unannounced opening of new windows, of course that is needed. The whole point of my earlier post was to question the logic of where to place the burden of removing the barriers, where to place the burden of doing the transformation?. Options include the author, the browser+assistive technology (including server side), and the user's configuration settings in the Operating System/platform. I totally understand the term "transformable content", that is a synonym for "technically accessible" content. It's content that is enabled to be accessible to a person with a disability using a properly configured assistive technology and system. To properly understand what is required for the content to be transformable, we all need to understand the capabilities (and responsibilities) of the browser and assistive technology . This is the research that is needed to properly update WCAG 2.0. WCAG 1.0 checkpoint 10.1 was specifically written with this notion of the browser responsibility in mind. The "Working Group does not expect these checkpoints to be necessary in the future..." [see note 2]: "Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user." The only way to accommodate both those who want multiple windows opened - and - those who need to only have one is for the assistive technology, browser, and/or the operating system/platform to handle it. When we place all the burden on the author, by telling her that she can't use code that opens the help page in a new window, then everyone unfairly gets the same result. I do not agree with placing overlapping checkpoints in the various guidelines. For example if we place a requirement in WCAG to require the author to tell the user that the link will open in a new window, and then we also tell the user agent in UAAG to also notify the user that the link will open in a new window, then what the end users ends up hearing is: "opens in a new window, opens in a new window" twice. As a user I can turn off the second announcement, if the browser and/or assistive technology will allow, but how do I turn off what the author placed in the content? As an end user I can't go randomly deleting text, nor is it always efficient to ask the author to add more notation to conditionally exclude some of the text. There is already plenty of syntactical information (read transformable or technically accessible markup) supplied by the author when using the HTML coding to open the help in a new page. It's now up to the browser and assistive technology (or server side at) to deliver to the end user what he prefers. Note 1: IBM Web Adaptation Technology http://www.research.ibm.com/access/ Note 2: WCAG 1.0 Guidelines 10 http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-interim-accessibility Regards, Phill Jenkins
Received on Wednesday, 19 November 2003 10:55:10 UTC